Harrison Ford plays Dutch, a Washington D.C. Internal Affairs cop. When his wife goes down in a plane crash and he realizes that she had been having an affair, he sets out to find out why. In doing so he crosses the path of New Hampshire Representative Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott Thomas). It was her husband that was having the affair with Dutch's wife. Dutch wants to find out all he can, so he can put his mind at ease. Kay just wants to put it all behind her as quickly as possible to get on with her life. Then the two of them start to fall in love, or lust or something. And as we all know, relationships built on fear, hatred, sadness, and revenge always work out.
The biggest problem with Random Hearts is that I didn't care about either of the two main characters. Neither of them were particularly likeable, and I never saw any chemistry between them. Dutch seemed to fall in love because he wanted to get back at his wife. Kay seemed to fall for Dutch... well I don't know why she fell for Dutch. There was nothing that showed why these two would care about each other, except for the fact that their spouses were having an affair. To me, that isn't reason enough to center a whole film around. So, the writer and director threw in a couple of side stories. Dutch with his investigation of another cop, and Kay with her re-election bid. Neither of these secondary stories had anything to do with anything. It was like they were thrown in there just to make the movie longer. Or because the director (Sydney Pollack) realized that the relationship between Dutch and Kay couldn't sustain an entire movie. Which of course was true. However the secondary story lines were badly done. The re-election campaign and Kay's relationship with her daughter were shown, but not played out. That story line wasn't too bad, especially compared to Dutch's secondary story. He's on the ass of this cop who has been shaking down people for money. So this cop decides to kill Dutch. In broad daylight. In a driveby shooting. In front of other people. Now c'mon. Am I supposed to really believe this would happen? And what purpose did it serve? None that I could see.
So overall, Random Hearts was an unnecessary movie. The plot line wasn't strong enough to hold together a whole movie. And the secondary stories were nonsensical and at times just plain stupid. The only thing about this movie that was good was the fact that Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas were in it. Two fine actors, in two lousy roles. And is it just me, or did some of the music sound like it came straight from the Rocky movies?
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